Gold Digital and Electronic Device Design · 2017
Sestetto Speaker Orchestra
by Stefano I. Scarascia and Shyam F. Zonca
- A' Design Award 2017 Gold Winner in Digital and Electronic Device Design
- Awarded April 15, 2017
- CLIENT: Produzione IMpropria
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 52,794
- Verification code A2A2515C57 · Verify this award
About Sestetto Speaker Orchestra
An orchestral ensemble of speakers that play together like real musicians. Sestetto is a multi-channel audio system to play individual instrument tracks in separate loudspeakers of different technologies and materials dedicated to the specific sound case, among pure concrete, resonating wooden soundboards and ceramic horns. The mixing of tracks and parts comes back to be physically in the place of listening, like in a real concert. Sestetto is the chamber orchestra of the recorded music. Sestetto is directly self-produced by its designers Stefano Ivan Scarascia and Francesco Shyam Zonca.
Stefano Ivan Scarascia's Sestetto Speaker Orchestra emerges from a rich lineage of design philosophy that positions functional objects as legitimate vehicles for sculptural expression and material poetry, suggesting affinities with post-war Italian radical design movements that challenged boundaries between art, craft, and industrial production. The work appears to engage deliberately with the phenomenology of listening, proposing that acoustic experience extends beyond mere sound reproduction to encompass the visual, tactile, and spatial dimensions of the apparatus through which music manifests. The designer seems to have selected concrete not merely for its acoustic properties—its mass effectively dampens unwanted resonance and cabinet coloration—but for its capacity to evoke architectural permanence, elemental earthiness, and the honest expression of cast form that brutalist aesthetics championed throughout the twentieth century. Each speaker housing presents a distinctive faceted geometry, the angular planes perhaps referencing crystalline mineral formations or the prismatic quality of sound waves themselves as they propagate through space. The warm birch and walnut elements function as material mediators, their organic grain patterns and honey-amber tonalities softening the mineral severity while establishing clear visual hierarchy between acoustic enclosure and control interface. The central mixer unit, with its six vertical sliders numbered sequentially, suggests orchestral conductor metaphor—the user positioned as director of a spatial sound ensemble rather than passive listener. Orange cabling introduces chromatic vitality while remaining functionally legible, its high visibility perhaps serving both aesthetic and practical purposes during installation and configuration. The pristine white acoustic chambers within each speaker recall the interior of musical instruments, spaces where vibration transforms into audible experience through carefully calibrated volumes and surfaces. One might observe how the overall arrangement—speakers arrayed symmetrically around the central control—proposes listening as ceremonial practice, the equipment demanding dedicated space and intentional engagement rather than invisible background presence. The work invites consideration of how we might reimagine our relationship with the technological objects that mediate our most profound aesthetic experiences.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- An orchestral ensemble of loudspeakers that play together like real musicians. Sestetto is a multi-channel audio system to play individual instrument tracks in separate loudspeakers of different materials and technologies dedicated to the specific sound case.
The HiFi concrete speaker is especially suitable for drums and basses.
The ceramic speaker can emphasizs wind instruments and voices through its ceramic horn.
The wooden speaker puts in vibration the wooden soundboard itself, for acoustic string instrument. Sestetto is directly self-produced by its designers Stefano Ivan Scarascia and Francesco Shyam Zonca. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Console (USB connection, multi-channel digital-analog converter, six separate 30W amplifiers with dedicate controls, passive and active outputs, dimensions 280 mm x 250 mm x 250 mm)
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Speakers (8 Ohm impedance, 30W power, dimensions 350 mm x 300 mm x 300mm)
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Concrete Speakers (polypropylene mid-woofer speaker,
tweeter speaker,
two-Way Crossover,
8 liters closed cabinet of reinforced concrete)
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Ceramic Speakers (midrange speaker,
ceramic horn in a case of reinforced concrete)
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Wooden Speakers (vibration transducer,
soundboard of fir and birch in a case of reinforced concrete) - Tags
- multi-channel, audio, system, speaker, concrete, ceramic, wood, vibration, loudspeaker, orchestra
- Production Technology
- The console case is handmade and finished of fir, walnut and mahogany.
The speaker cabinets are molded in reinforced concrete.
The ceramic horns are turned by hand by a ceramic artisan, while the wooden soundboards and boxes are made of fir and birch. - Design Challenge
- The hardest part of this design activity has been finding rapid solutions for the self-development and especially the self-production processes, while maintaining the design and aesthetic quality typical of Hi-Fi audio devices.
- Project Duration
- The project started in September 2012 in Milan, Italy and finished in February 2013. It was exhibited in Fuorisalone del Mobile in April 2009, in XXI Triennale from June to September 2016, in Lambrate Fall Edition in October 2016. It appeared in Domus, Ottagono, Case e Stili and Interni magazines and web-zines.
- Operation Flow
- Connect the console to the computer through the USB port and just play the multi-channel tune with a common music player software. Try and choose different speaker connections to experiment surprising combinations with the materials and the technologies. Adjust the dedicated volume for each instrument or voice channel and feel free to locate the individual speakers in the whole space.
- Research
- In the context of a deep self-production research at the Politecnico di Milano, the aim of Sestetto was to extend this approach also to the self-production of the listening experience. After investigating the alternative audio systems technical possibilities, it has been developed the electronic multi-channel device, in parallel to the typical sound properties of different materials and technologies for experimental sound combinations. The selected self-production processes massively influenced the final aspect of the product, with the aesthetic considerations on the historical audio devices and trends.
- Inspiration
- Sestetto is the chamber orchestra of the recorded music: the mixing of tracks and parts comes back to be physically in the place of listening, like in a real concert. From the majesty of the ceramic horn, the heat of the wooden soundboard, the fidelity of the concrete cabinet, Sestetto incorporates in a set more diverse methods of sound reproduction, for a continuous musical experimentation also in the listening experience.
- Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Marianna Milione, Stefano Ivan Scarascia, 2013.
Image #2: Photographer Francesco Shyam Zonca, 2013.
Image #3: Photographer Francesco Shyam Zonca, 2013.
Image #4: Photographer Francesco Shyam Zonca, 2013.
Image #5: Photographer Francesco Shyam Zonca, 2013.
VIDEO CREDITS: Shooting Beniamino Sulfaro / Video Editing Stefano Ivan Scarascia / Soundtrack Stefano Ivan Scarascia, 2013.
Colors of Sestetto Speaker Orchestra
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G0E2 ShopDesign Interview about Sestetto Speaker Orchestra
The main aim of Sestetto was to allow the self-production of the listening experience of recorded music. The mixing of tracks and parts back to be physically in the place of listening, like in a real concert. In this way you can better distinguish the single voices and instruments that are usually merged in the common stereo premix offered by the traditional recorded music and audio players.
The main focus has been designing something able to be completely self-prototyped, while maintaining a proper aesthetic quality.
The first plan for Sestetto is to find music producers and distribution partners that believe in this next approach of the musical fruition, for its scale developments or just for interesting public and experimental performances. Smaller spin-off projects could follow it.
The development of Sestetto - from its preliminary research and concept to the first prototypation - took around four months full time.
Sestetto has been freely developed, in the context of the “Autoproduzioni" self-production Final Synthesis Design Course held by teacher Stefano Maffei at the MA Degree of Product Design for Innovation in the Politecnico di Milano.
At the moment one self-produced prototype performs as an unique piece of art installation.
It also could be considered for Sestetto to be in the future sold/licensed to a worthy company.
It also could be considered for Sestetto to be in the future sold/licensed to a worthy company.
The new technologies and systems were now ready for allowing the subverting of the usual constrictions of art fruition and distribution as like as the premixed recorded music.
Sestetto is mainly designed for Hi-End audio lovers, music passionates.
It’s also designed to perform in theaters, schools and music venues.
It’s also designed to perform in theaters, schools and music venues.
In the past, there have been developed several other multichannel systems, but none of them was designed to reproduce the individual instruments in dedicated speakers. Far from the usual spatial surround applications of the past systems, the console of sestetto is designed for this particular musical use, equipped with the experimental speakers made of different materials and technologies dedicated to the specified recorded instrument.
Sestetto is the italian word used to mean an orchestral ensemble of six musicians, like its six independent musical speakers.
The shiny ceramic horns of the ceramic speakers have been realized by Ceramiche Milesi artisanal workshop, well following the original drawings.
First of all, the digital technologies allowed sestetto to play six separate channels at the same time, with a D/A converter before the amplifier, the vibration speakers make the wood resonating in the wooden speakers.
Talking about production, except of some digital fabrication technologies such the lasercut of the wood details, the rest of the production has been completely traditional and analog, from the wood manufacturings to the concrete moulding.
Talking about production, except of some digital fabrication technologies such the lasercut of the wood details, the rest of the production has been completely traditional and analog, from the wood manufacturings to the concrete moulding.
Although at the moment there’s only one physical prototype of Sestetto, it’s been shown in several exhibitions and performances with success. It attracted design magazines and recently a proposal for a big international exhibition. The time was so ready for trying an international design competition.
The main teaching of Sestetto has been to follow all of the product development process, from its concept to the self-production of a working prototype.
Working now with companies and factories, it’s so useful to know the production issues thank to a little but complete experience like this.
Working now with companies and factories, it’s so useful to know the production issues thank to a little but complete experience like this.